Senate child welfare hearings

....the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The US Senate Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law continued its hearings on child welfare this week, with another installment focused on foster care and human trafficking. The headlines were ugly: “20% of Missing Georgia Foster Children Likely Victims of Sex Trafficking”; “Hundreds of Georgia foster kids may have been sex trafficked”; “Georgia’s Missing Foster Children Tied to Human Trafficking.” A witness from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) testified that of the 1790 children in care reported missing from Georgia foster care between 2018 and 2022, her agency identified over 400 as likely child sex trafficking victims. A young woman who was adopted out of foster care in Detroit at age three testified that when she came into Georgia’s foster care system after her adoptive family moved to the State when she was 15, that she suffered abuse in group homes and detention centers, ran away, and was trafficked. “We know we have an urgent issue when children feel better on the streets or with a trafficker than they do in their foster care placements,” the NCMEC expert told the Senate panel.

The “good” that came out of the hearings was the point emphasized by Fulton County prosecutor Earnelle Winfrey. Asked by Sen. Ossoff why group homes are “inappropriate” for these youth, she emphasized that the youth who run from group homes and end up susceptible to trafficking are those who have suffered severe trauma throughout their lives. Group homes that care for this population have to train their staff in addressing the underlying trauma these youth have experienced, she said. It’s only by building strong relationships with these youth that you can help them overcome that trauma and heal.

Ms. Winfrey couldn’t be more correct. Children who have experienced ongoing trauma often develop a trigger “fight or flight” response. Feeling “trapped,” as the young woman herself testified at the hearing, they run. The more trauma they have experienced, the more likely they are to run away and the more likely they are to be exploited by a trafficker. And the more they run, the harder it becomes to find them a safe, stable placement, which is why these youth often end up in hotels.

The bad part of the hearing is that what the headlines seem to have taken from the testimony is the idea that it is Georgia’s foster care system or group homes that are causing these problems. In fact, what Ms. Winfrey described is what we need: places where these youth can be kept safe while professionals who are trained in treating trauma build the relationships necessary to heal that trauma. By modeling calm, relational behavior, by modeling healthy attachments, trained adults can help the teen’s traumatized brain regain its calm so that the “thinking” part of the brain can again function normally.

That’s why I grimaced when I heard the NCMEC expert say, and Sen. Ossoff repeat, the allegation that these youth “feel better on the streets or with a trafficker than they do in their foster care placements.” The person who becomes addicted to opiates to escape the pain of childhood sexual abuse may “feel better,” but that’s not a healthy response. What’s needed is therapeutic treatment, and being in treatment is never as easy as escaping the pain through drugs.

Congress can help not by criticizing foster and group homes but rather by helping us create and fund such healing places. These would include therapeutic foster care homes and qualified residential treatment facilities, already authorized by federal law but in many states not covered by Medicaid. Focusing on such solutions would be a good use of the Senate panel’s time.

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In other news:

• Speaking of ensuring Medicaid coverage for therapeutic care, this bill might help. It’s sponsored by Sens. Rubio and Tillis. Here’s another set of recommendations that would improve mental health and therapeutic services for children.

• Again, a reminder from Texas that we have to have proper residential treatment for children who have experienced severe trauma.

• Worried about youth running away from foster care and group homes? Might want to look at Colorado.

• Nebraska’s Rep. Don Bacon has ideas about how to improve the child welfare system.

• Here’s a report on New Mexico youth aging out of foster care.

• Former foster youth in Washington expressed concern about the system.

• In North Carolina, opponents of the new Parental Rights law claim that it is preventing children from learning how to protect themselves from child molesters.

• Louisiana has a new website where concerned citizens can lodge complaints about the child welfare system.

• Here’s a long piece from Minnesota on former foster children who were killed after being reunited with their families.

• A Virginia Commission is recommending foster care system improvements.

• A new lawsuit accuses Tennessee of neglecting the mental health needs of children in state custody.

• Finally, what do you think of abolishing anonymous child abuse reports? The Imprint has an interesting piece.

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